Wednesday, March 31, 2010

"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision." -- Ayn Rand

About Ayn Rand: Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism.

Rand immigrated to the United States in 1926. She worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood and had a play produced on Broadway. She first achieved fame with her novel The Fountainhead, which was followed by her best-known work, the philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

"If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem." -- Richard Bach

Richard David Bach, born 23 June 1936, is widely known as the author of the hugely popular 1970s best-sellers Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, and others. His books espouse his philosophy that our apparent physical limits and mortality are merely appearance.

Monday, March 29, 2010

On March 31, 1596, Rene Descartes was born in La Haye, Touraine, France.His initial interest was legal studies, but Descartes turned instead to mathematics, physics, and philosophy.

The father of modern philosophy, the basic strategy of his philosophical method of doubt was to defeat skepticism on its own ground. Descartes began this by systematically doubting everything he had ever learned, and then accepting as true only that which could not be denied. He recommended the approach in a famous thought:

"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things."